Dead Inside
by limeRIDDLE
Summary: Some people just have it rough.
1. Chapter 1

A low whistle pierces through the dirty prison. It's a beautiful high note, butting its way right through the thick summer night. The prisoner holds her hands in front of her, watching the silver moonlight play across the slender knuckles.

"I've got a three hundred yen question for you."

The voice comes from her fat uncle. He has a name, she just chooses not to remember it. Call it an informal rebellion.

The thought almost makes her smile.

She clears her throat, "Question away, sir."

He stiffens. He hates it when she calls him sir. "What's a sixteen year-old Jounin prodigy doing in a drunk tank?"

She rolls over, staring at him with those insolent yellow eyes. "I'm pretty sure that at sixteen, the Jounin isn't considered a prodigy anymore, just above average."

"Come on," he says, stepping back. "I paid up. You can come home now."

_Home._

A very relative term.

"Can I ask a question, sir?"

He winces again, but just says, "Shoot."

"Why was your question a three hundred yen question?"

"That was how much your bail cost."

His niece looks down, tangled, matted hair falling over her face. When she looks up, there's something in her eyes that's almost genuine. "Thank you," she says sincerely.

She walks out of the prison, paying no mind to the guards that leer at her. One of them, a pot-bellied man with mean eyes, calls, "See you next year, Kyo."

She waves a hand behind her, not looking up. Her uncle on the other hand, he's got half a mind to punch the little ass wipe.

"Excuse me, sir?"

They're just outside of the police station. She's staring at him with those unnerving, unblinking eyes. She doesn't look sixteen. She's just a little girl. A little girl who got hurt.

"Yeah, Kyo?"

"Is it okay if I take a walk? It's such a pretty night."

Something about her words sound an awful lot like good-bye. But her uncle smiles and says, "Of course, kid. Your aunt and I love you, you know."

"Yeah. Thank you. For everything."

She heads in the wrong direction.

She doesn't know where she's going, but she knows that she's going.

Not back to the drunk tank, no. Not anymore. She's not going to be there next year, celebrating that perverse anniversary. The back of her neck aches and she rubs _that_ spot tenderly.

Time to start over.

To start new.

* * *

Kankuro leans against the counter, staring at his sister like _she's_ the idiot. "I really think that it's a good idea."

"Well I think that it's stupid."

Stupid? Um, no. Try brilliant.

"Of course you do. You're a girl!"

Temari's expression becomes stony. "It's not just that I'm a girl, Kankuro- a girl that can and will kick your ass straight through to next week, by the way- I don't think that it's the right thing to do."

"You don't understand, Temari. He'll love it."

"He hasn't exactly expressed interest in-"

"He's a guy, Temari. Trust me."

"No!" She stands up, slapping her hands down on the table. "No. I don't have to trust you and I don't even have to _try_ to understand, Kankuro. You are _not_ getting Gaara a stripper for his birthday!"

The tea shop goes silent, staring at the Sand Siblings. While it is true that they are both staying over in one of the smaller towns that rest on the outskirts of the desert, everyone knows who they are. More importantly, they know who Gaara is. He's the Kazekage… As in the resident bad ass of the desert.

"I'm with the guy on this one."

The brother and sister both turn to look at the hooded figure at the end of the bar. The stranger turns, nodding at the both of them and raising her drink up to her mouth. She downs it in a single go, and smacks her lips together afterwards.

"What?" Temari says, eyes narrowing.

"I'm with your, uh, well, I'm assuming that he's your brother. Get the kid a stripper. He'll love it, I guarantee."

"How could you guarantee something like that?" Temari asks.

"Yeah, do you even know our brother?" Kankuro adds in, frowning deeply. I mean, he mostly wants the stripper for his own enjoyment. He doesn't really know if Gaara would like her, or if he even likes women.

"Gaara of the Sand right?" The stranger turns so that she's facing them. She holds her hand out a couple of inches above her head, "Yay-high? He's got that little mark on his head and he's kinda got this stink face like he hates everyone and everything."

Okay. So maybe this girl knew their brother. Or, at least, she knows _of_ him.

"What makes you think that he'd like a stripper?"

Temari's got her arms folded across her chest.

The stranger shrugs, "Well, he seems like a kinky guy. Leather!" She snaps her fingers and points at Kankuro. "If you're gonna get him a stripper, make sure that you go for the leather."

Kankuro starts nodding. "I can see that working."

"Who are you and how come you think you know so much about our little brother?"

Good question, Temari. Good question.

The stranger takes another drink. "Oh me? I'm nobody."

"What's your name then?" Kankuro asks. By now, he's come up by the stranger, sitting down next to her.

"My name doesn't matter."

Temari's starting to get suspicious. "Is there a reason why you don't want us to know your name? Will we recognize it if we heard it?"

What's this twenty questions?

"I don't know," the stranger says, shrugging. She waves at the bartender for another drink. "You might know my name. You might not. I was never really all that big in the shinobi food chain."

"Shinobi, huh? What village are you from?"

Kankuro butts in now, and his eyes are dark. No headband. That's a bad sign. No headband means no village. No village means rogue. And rogue means a pain in the ass.

"Mist," she says. "But that was a _long_ time ago." She smiles, downing the last of her drink and slapping the glass along with a few bills down on the table. "Now, I hope that that's the last of your questions because I'm leaving now."

"No you aren't," Temari says, grabbing the girl's wrist. "We'll tell you when the questions are done."

Ugh.

Yeah, it's Kyo if you haven't guessed. Three weeks and a couple of odd days and she finds herself in another drunk fight.

These customers, however, aren't fat fishermen. They both look tough.

At the height of her strength, she could've swept them off their feet and then spat a couple of snarky one-liners in their crying faces. Now, though? Now, she likes to think that she's wiser, but everyone knows that that isn't the case.

So, take them or answer their dumb questions?

"I don't want to fight you princess," she whispers, drunken breath beating against Temari's face. "But I'm done with the personal questions. I've got a right to keep my business as my business."

Oh _no._ Temari is _not_ a princess.

This should be easy.

The girl is wasted. She has to shut one of her eyes to stop herself of seeing double of the other girl.

Oh, Temari thinks pulling out her fan, this one's going to be a breeze.

* * *

"Temari got her ass kicked," Kankuro grins, laughing. He stands next to his younger brother at the foot of Temari's hospital bed.

Gaara frowns, _this is the second time that they've sedated her in the last hour._ He nods at one of the medics, "You should put restraints on the bed. Just in case."

Yeah. Just in case.

"So… Gaara," Kankuro asks, leading the way out into the baking desert heat, "How do you feel about leather?"

Leather?

"Leather on what?"

"On a girl."

Kankuro's stopped walking and he stares very seriously at Gaara. The moment of truth. The grand finale. Stripper or no stripper. Right here.

Gaara shrugs, "Sounds fun."

Kankuro stares, jaw dropped. Finally, he manages to grin, running to catch up with his baby bro.

_Kinky bastard._


	2. Chapter 2

The stranger pulls her cloak gingerly over the raw skin, freshly burned from the blazing desert heat. She's still got a good couple of miles to go before any form of shelter from the sun teeters over her, besides these damned wasted trees, but she decides that she'd rather risk a heat stroke than going any longer melting her face under the death ray that is the sun.

Her left arm aches and she's pulled a muscle in her back from that fight with the Sand Sibling girl.

Afterwards she'd been so proud of herself. _She still had it._

It being talent.

All of Kyo's life there's only been one thing that she's ever been any good at- fighting. She excelled at the ninja academy and all of the way up through the Chunnin Exam.

Where she came from, the fact that she survived long enough to see her sixteenth birthday is remarkable.

So, after a year of self-abuse, she's still got it?

Good news.

_Great_ news.

Alcohol-worthy news.

_Hey. I've got an idea- let's get drunk._

With not even the slightest shred of dignity, Kyo reaches inside of her cloak pulling out a bottle of sake. The liquid is warm but burns gently down her throat. She wipes the back of her hand across her mouth, staring firmly at the emptier bottle.

_What if I had a bottle of sake that never went empty? It just keeps refilling itself._

She frowns a little bit longer, finally focusing what remains of her intellect on refilling the bottle. With her mind.

Nope. She isn't drunk enough for that.

Not yet at least.

But, the day's still young.

Kyo grins and raises the bottle to her lips.

"A little early for that, huh?"

There's a guy in a tree. Kyo blinks a couple of times and then glares at her sake, what is in this stuff?

He's handsome. Older. Erratic grey hair. He isn't wearing his headband, even if he's clearly a shinobi. There's a scar over his left eye, which he keeps closed. There's a mask covering half of his face.

_Awfully detailed for a hallucination._

Oh shit.

Kyo recognizes this guy. She gapes, paling a little, "You're Hatake Kakashi."

"Not today I'm not," he mumbles, raising a frosted glass bottle up to eye-level. He sighs dramatically, taking a long hard suck on the bottle. "Today, I'm alive."

"Ouch," she winces. "That sounds rough. Say, um, do you have any more alcohol up there?"

He waves her over with his bottle. "Come on up."

She crawls up the tree fairly easily, sinking into Hatake's alcohol. He's got a whole case of it.

_A year ago, this guy would've tried to kill me._

"So," she says, "What's your problem? Besides, you know, _living."_

Hatake's eyes are dead. Kyo's never seen him before, but she can't imagine that his eyes were always so blank. He swallows and then admits, "I… died yesterday."

_So I really am hallucinating._

"No. I'm not crazy." Hatake mutters. "I can't explain it, but I died. I died but… but this boy brought me back."

"What's the problem?" Kyo asks. "You should be happy. You know the whole reborn bull."

"I don't know. I just feel sick."

Kyo nods, dipping into her bottle.

"So, what's your problem?"

She frowns at him, a little dumbfounded. "What?"

"You heard me."

Kyo laughs. "I'm not exactly the sharing type, sir."

"That isn't fair. I told you my story. Your turn."

In her incapacitated state, Kyo isn't exactly capable of coming up with a good comeback, so she shrugs. Maybe part of her wants to spill the beans, to tell part of her story.

"I made a really bad decision," she admits finally.

"How bad?" Hatake asks.

"How bad? Are you serious? What do you want me to do, read my diary out to you?"

"I _died."_

Kyo calls him a few bad names under her breath and then shakes her head. "I can't go home. I can't see my family ever again. I've got a- I've got a fourteen year-old sister who wants to _kill_ me."

"That's pretty bad," Kakashi says, nodding.

"Tell me about it."

Late into the evening, the drinking buddies prepare to leave each other. Kyo slips down the tree first, landing first on her feet but quickly falling on her ass. She snores loudly, drool dribbling down her chin.

Kakashi drops heavily onto his feet, somehow managing to keep his balance. He _nearly_ falls though. Leaning over the top of the girl whose name he doesn't know, he spies something very, very interesting. And, to be honest, Kakashi's got more of his wits about him when he's drunk than most people do when they're sober. So, he immediately recognizes what he sees and immediately summons one of his dogs to help escort his new friend into the broken remains of Konoha.

"Never would've pegged you for the type," he tells her while she continues to snore loudly.

He doesn't bother tying her up. When she wakes, she'll be up to her eyes in a really bad hangover.

A chill runs up his spine as her hair parts over the back of her neck, exposing the soft flesh. Not pure skin. Not whole skin.

_Tainted_ skin.

Skin that can only hint on what must be rotting and fussing beneath the surface.

Dead. That's the kind of stuff that shows that on the inside you're dead. Dead or dying.

Kakashi looks away because he doesn't need to see it again to know just how bad it is.

The curse seal.

This girl's got the curse seal.

_Orochimaru's _curse seal.

* * *

"Wuh-Wher-Wheremih?"

The world outside hurts her eyes, but the world inside of her head hurts more than anything else. Kyo screws up her eyes and presses the palms of her head against her temples. She's bringing her knees up to her chest and pressing her face against the cold wall when Kakashi walks in.

"So you just… uh, _found_ her?"

Kakashi shoots Ibiki a narrowed-eyed look, a look that the head of Interrogation and Torture doesn't see.

Just found her, rotting from the inside out.

You could cut this girl open and there wouldn't be any blood. Her skin would slip underneath your blade like little white flower petals, so soft and delicate. The smell that clouds up would be enough to send you rocking back on your feet. On the inside, everything's dry and grey. Shriveled little lumps are all that's left of what used to be a heart and lungs. Her stomach is so twisted and angry that it just went and ate itself up.

No. That's not a person anymore.

That's just the walking dead.

She stares dimly in front of her with those weird yellow eyes before she wretches, spilling vomit down her front.

"We're thinking about letting her detox first," Ibiki says.

You cruel, cruel people.

Kakashi nods. "Probably for the best."

"I have to feel bad for her," Ibiki adds. "For a kid, just a kid, to go to such a horrible place that she does this to herself, Orichmaru's…"

"There aren't words for him," Kakashi clears his throat. "So don't hurt yourself trying to find just one."

* * *

In a nearby cell, Karin raises her head. She raises her nose to the air and her mouth opens.

All she can smell is dank, dirty wetness and mildew. She can't see anything in front of her, it's all dark. A little bit of blood swirls in her mouth.

Her lips curl.

_Chakra._

She can _feel_ the chakra. Oh, it's familiar all right. And it tastes just as bad as it always has.

Hers. It's _her_ chakra.

Karin smirks. This is good news. Very good news.

Time for a little revenge, it seems.

She starts laughing, cold and low at first.


	3. Chapter 3

"Do you know why you're here?"

Kyo frowns. She can't see the guy who's asking her, but what remains of her mind leads her to believe that it's Morino Ibiki, head of Konoha's Torture and Interrogation Unit.

Ugh. That sure explains the utter lack of alcoholic beverages.

"I'm assuming," she has to stop. She starts playing with her tongue, sticking it out of her mouth and moving it around. It feels thick, like it's furry or something equally gross. "I'm, ah, assuming that it's 'cause Hatake saw my seal."

"Very good. Will you tell us your name?"

Uh oh.

"Nope. I seem to have forgotten it."

"Really? That's strange, because you seem to remember Hatake and you only met him yesterday."

Drat.

"I'm not going to tell you my name," she says.

"You know, that's what a lot of people say, but they all talk, eventually."

For her credit, the girl doesn't crack.

Ibiki has a list of the ones who don't- a very short list, for that matter- and he can't help but respect them. There has to be some insane depth of feeling for an outside source or a rather twisted and severe desire to self-perseveration to _not_ crack under torture.

Not only does she stay whole, but the girl even manages to smile.

Blood dripping from her swelling eye, bruises blossoming across her soft, tender flesh, and her lips curl. Those strange yellow eyes flicker, but something deep inside of them is still missing, lost you could say.

She smiles.

It's like she's telling him that it's okay.

It's okay if you hurt me. You're just doing your job. Don't worry about, I'll forgive you.

* * *

Karin smiles at the man. "Her name is Sakata Kyoko."

"Excuse me?"

The smile grows, curling over the sides of her face. "That prisoner in the cell next to mine. Her name is Sakata Kyoko. She has red hair and these freaky eyes. There's a curse seal on her neck."

"And I can tell you _anything_ that you want to know about her."

Ibiki comes back after lunch and he's very grim. He doesn't feel right about this, but he goes on ahead. "You know, I never in a million years would've thought that you were _the_ Sakata Kyoko."

Her head raises, eyes wide. For a second, she's alert. For the barest moment she reverts back to her old shinobi instincts. Then, the moment passes and she dies a little more. She curls in on herself and she whispers, in a very low, very bleak voice, "How'd you find out?"

"A little bird."

"The Uchiha?" She asks. "That's the little bird that Orochimaru took, wasn't it? You guys used to have Uchiha, didn't you?"

"Sasuke used to belong to our village, but he wasn't the one who told me." _We haven't seen that little shit in what is it- three years?_ "It was someone else. Someone who specifically wanted to remain anonymous to you."

She looks indignant, but the expression fades, and she's scared. Scared and quiet, almost frail-looking. "I suppose you're going to ship me back to the Mist for my execution."

The meager respect that Ibiki managed to scrounge up for the girl evaporates. Now, she's just a likable coward.

"I think that if you cooperate, we can work something out."

* * *

Hyuga Neji stares blank-faced at the inebriated female. Her words are the only giveaway that she's actually drunk. That, and the odd half-awake look in her damned yellow eyes.

Truth is, there should have been nothing about Sakata Kyoko that is likable.

For the first and aforementioned matter, she is almost always stupidly drunk. He hasn't seen her sober yet.

She is a rogue shinobi. She _betrayed _her village, her friends, and her family. True, while she didn't go out with a bang like Uchiha Itachi or with several rotting skeletons hanging in her closet like Orochimaru, she still abandoned a whole life. Neji read up on her file (call it curiosity, except this is _the_ Hyuga Neji we're talking about and curiosity could potentially be defined as an emotion- which he does not make a habit of using very often). Two older brothers. One younger sister. An exuberantly proud and well-respected shinobi father. A well-reputed medic-nin mother.

However, her worst offense yet, she talks… _a lot._

But she isn't boring, which is unfortunate.

And she brings up a lot of really good, really insightful comments on things that she should know _nothing_ about.

Stupid girl.

She winks at him and his white eyes narrow.

Speaking of eyes… hers are _weird._

Bright yellow.

TenTen can't look at them, they kind of scare her. Lee on the other hand, at times, can seem mesmerized by them.

"Well, it is as charming as it ever has been to see you three again," Sakata says, smiling warmly. Her fingers are clasped firmly around the frosted glass neck of her sake.

Yeah. This isn't the first time they've been assigned to Sakata's protection detail. For the past two months she's been dragged before the Council and for private meetings with the new Hokage.

He doesn't envy her. Not one bit.

"Good afternoon Kyoko-kun."

Neji's eyes narrow. _Lee._ Do not communicate with the prisoner.

"It's Kyo, Lee. Kyoko's too long. Too formal."

Lee slaps himself in the face. "Ah, yes. You told me this last time."

TenTen scoffs a little, "And the time before that."

"And the time before that," Kyo adds, laughing.

TenTen laughs too, except she looks guiltily at Neji afterwards. She turns away from the prisoner, keeping her lips in a tight line. Outside of the cart, the rebuilding village swims slowly by.

_As little outside exposure as possible._ Danzo had said. _The village doesn't need to know about her._

But Neji doesn't think that it's the village that Danzo is trying to protect from Sakata's inexplicable charm.

It's just one person.

One person with blue eyes and blonde hair.

He's the kind of guy who's fallen easily for people with tragic pasts.

He doesn't need to know this girl.

* * *

The contract never gets written down.

It's just _that_ top secret.

Kyo doesn't smile at Danzo, he makes her skin crawl. She takes a long suck at the end of her bottle, letting the sake burn pleasantly down her throat.

Danzo's eyes narrow.

And then he smiles this calm, cold, heartless smile, because he knows that she's just a puppet. Albeit an annoying puppet, but a puppet nonetheless.

"You understand the terms of our, _ah,_ agreement?" He says.

She nods. She keeps her eyes on the newest Hokage. "Of course I do."

Very basic.

_You will give us any information that we should like to know- or get sent back to die at the Hidden Mist._

_An attempt at harming any resident, pet, or physical and metaphysical possessions of Konoha will result in your immediate removal back to your impending death at the Hidden Mist._

_Talking to anyone who hasn't been specifically approved by the Sixth Hokage himself will result in consequences (AKA your shipment back to the Hidden Mist where you may be dragged through the streets by a goat tied to your intestines)._

_You will remain under constant supervision. If, for any reason, you are removed from your guards' sight, you will be kicked straight into the Hidden Mist where they will boil you and then suck on your brains through pink-striped plastic straws._

Slight over-exaggeration on a few parts, and a little too much personality for Danzo to properly manifest, but the gist is there.

Service or death at the Hidden Mist.

Kyo only gets one benefit.

_Alcohol is in constant supply._

Danzo clears his throat and Kyo's stomach sinks.

So the service begins.

"First, you will tell me everything that you know about the Uchiha brat."

The change is noticeable and immediate. The bottle lowers a fraction of an inch, the unsettling yellow eyes harden. Her head dips just enough to be noticeable. Her voice is low. "Where do you want to start?"

He smiles. "At the beginning."

The Sakata looks tired after coming back from seeing Danzo. She doesn't even look at Ibiki as she slips into her cell, resting wearily against front wall.

"Water?" He asks.

She smiles a little. "Only if it's the kind of water that goes hot down your throat."

He gets it for her and then he leans back against his chair, a folding chair damn the budget. "You know if you wanted to kill yourself, it'd be faster to be executed in the Mist."

"I'm not trying to kill myself," she laughs hoarsely. "I'm just trying to make it easier to be me. You know, take the edge off things."

"Yeah because things are so difficult for you right now. You're living like royalty in terms of our other occupants."

As if on cue, a bloody scream rattles down the hallway.

She points the bottle at him, grinning. "Physical comforts, Ibiki-san, are nothing compared to emotional stability."

"And alcohol is giving you emotional stability?

She winks, "No. It's just making my emotional instability easier to deal with."


End file.
